Decorated downtown Rockford readies for holiday shindig Saturday

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the event and the ending time for Randy Finch's performance.

ROCKFORD — The big, decorated boxes under the 35-foot Norway spruce in the PNC Bank parking lot and at Joe Marino Park downtown are filled with goodwill.

About 350 volunteers from Heartland Community Church helped a few other volunteers last weekend put the presents that church members made in place for Saturday's big holiday shindig.

"Stroll on State" will be from 4 to 10 p.m. mostly along East State street downtown. There'll be a candlelight stroll, tree-lighting, carolers and roaming musicians, horse-drawn carriage rides, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" movie showing, a market at City Hall, Land of Nod pop-up retail space, Santa and ice skating. And restaurants and bars will offer specials.

Between 3,000 and 5,000 people are expected to attend, said Bridget French, director of marketing for the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, which is presenting the event.

Volunteers last weekend also wrapped 55 light poles with garland lights and placed 250 strands of lights on trees. Another 250 volunteers from the church will work at the event on Saturday.

Josh Peigh, lead pastor at Heartland, said decorating for the holiday bash is helping "create a moment that reminds the city this is a really great place to live and work."

It has been a while since downtown has been this spruced up for the Christmas season.

An activity added Tuesday is ice sculpting. Randy Finch of the Food Network's "Ice Brigade" and a team of ice artists will create sculptures from 4 to 5:30 p.m. and from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. on the upper deck of the parking garage at East State and Water streets.

Another draw will be the Land of Nod shop. The popular retailer, a sister company to Crate & Barrel, will sell handmade children's toys and home decor during the event at the former Water Street Cafe at Water and East State streets. Rockford businesses will sell food there, too: The Sweetery will offer cake pops; Java Mania will sell hot chocolate and coffee.

Land of Nod was lured here through a connection a local filmmaker has with the company, which sells Etsy products, and the business noted Rockford's Etsy efforts, French said.

Enter to win a $500 gift certificate from the Land of Nod on the visitor bureau's Facebook page, Go Rockford.

There also will be ice-skating. The synthetic ice rink that was set up in previous years at Davis Park will be available for skating during the "Merry and Bright" event in the Register Star's parking lot. It won't be set up at Davis Park as it had been the past three years, said Gordon Kaye, general manager of RAVE, which manages Davis Park. The number of skaters had started to dwindle there, he said.

Kaye noted another downtown activity, at 7 p.m. Saturday: The Rockford IceHogs will play the Chicago Wolves in a hockey game at the BMO Harris Bank Center.